Megan Roberts
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Genetic testing can prevent cancer only if it reaches the relatives who may share a risky gene variant. This process of finding and testing at-risk family members is called cascade screening.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Genetics
- Topics
Lynch syndrome
hereditary cancer
cascade screening
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Adapt the paper-based Let's Talk workbook into an interactive online tool that helps patients with Lynch syndrome tell relatives about genetic risk, guided by patient preferences and user feedback.
- Refine the online Let's Talk intervention's content, which includes information chunking, guided practice, coping plans and benefit-framed messages, through usability testing with patients.
- Pilot test the online Let's Talk tool to assess feasibility, measuring implementation outcomes first and early effectiveness on cascade screening among family members.
- Generate foundational data to design a larger trial of Let's Talk for increasing identification of relatives with Lynch syndrome across diverse care settings.
More about the research
Lynch syndrome is an inherited condition that raises a person's lifetime risk of cancer. Yet only about half of first-degree relatives, meaning parents, siblings and children, of people with Lynch syndrome are ever screened. That gap is a missed chance to prevent cancer.
Why it matters
Increasing cascade screening could identify more relatives with Lynch syndrome before cancer develops, so they can take part in prevention. An online, easy-to-share tool could help families and genetic counselors across diverse care settings. The approach may also extend to families with other hereditary conditions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tarsha Jones
Florida Atlantic University, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Identify factors linked to completing HBOC multigene panel testing, risk-reducing behaviors and family risk communication among 300 racially and ethnically diverse young breast cancer survivors, using a mixed-methods design.
Yue Guan
Emory University, GA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Adapt Georgia's statewide family history screening program for BRCA-associated cancers at multiple levels, guided by the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation and Sustainment framework, to maximize sustainable reach and improve risk communication.
Whitney Maxwell
University of Utah, UT·Medicine & Clinical Research
Provide cancer genetics expertise, genetic counseling services and counseling interventions to cancer center researchers studying hereditary cancer across the State of Utah.
The school
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 523 research doctorates a year.
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